Border Patrol Says It Won`t Keep Aliens At Airport Offices

PEMBROKE PINES -- The proposed U.S. Border Patrol headquarters at North Perry Airport will not be used as a detention center for illegal aliens, the agency assured city officials on Thursday .

Mayor Charles Flanagan said he wanted to see the guarantee in writing before he would be satisfied.

``It may very well be something we want in the city,`` Flanagan said. ``Then again, it may not. I`m still undecided.``

Flanagan met with Border Patrol officials a day after Commissioner Ira Corliss said he feared the headquarters would be the equivalent of a detention center.

Marshall Metzgar, chief patrol agent for the southeastern headquarters, said that only 10 percent of the 330 aliens arrested each month are taken to the agency`s present headquarters in Miami.

Those who would be taken to the headquarters proposed at Pembroke Road and Southwest 72nd Avenue, the airport`s southeast corner, would be kept at most for a few hours for an interview, Metzgar said. After an interview, an illegal alien usually is deported or sent to the Krome Detention Center in Dade County.

``It`s about the same as the Pembroke Pines police station,`` Metzgar said. ``It`s unfortunate that everybody thinks it`s going to be a prison or detention facility.``

Flanagan outlined his questions about the proposed 15,000-square-foot headquarters in a letter to agency officials. He demanded that no aliens be kept in the center overnight or for more than three hours for processing.

He asked for assurances that illegal aliens bound for the Krome Detention Center would not be taken to the proposed headquarters.

Flanagan suggested that Vice Mayor Margaret Bosarge organize a meeting so agency officials could explain the project to her constituents, the residents who live near the proposed headquarters.

He also asked Planning and Zoning Board members, who rejected a proposed site plan for the headquarters last week, to delay further consideration of the project.

Police Chief John Lombardo, at Flanagan`s request, will assess the possible effects of allowing the headquarters to be built.